BLU-RAY MOVIE REVIEWS

Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 4.75/5
Extras: 4/5 Meryl Streep leads an all-star cast in this musical celebration of mothers, daughters and fathers, true love's lost and new one's found. Based on the Broadway smash-hit and filled with ABBA Songs you know and love, it's the feel-good experience that will have you singing and dancing over and over again.

Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 5/5
Extras: 4/5 With the help of Lt. Jim Gordon and District Attorney Harvey Dent, Batman sets out to destroy organized crime in Gotham for good. The triumvirate proves effective, but soon find themselves prey to a rising criminal mastermind known as The Joker, who thrusts Gotham into anarchy and forces Batman closer to crossing the fine line between hero and vigilante.

Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 4.5/5
Extras: 3.5/5 From Producer Quentin Tarantino and Writer/Director Larry Bishop comes this lean, mean mayhem machine - fully loaded with bikers, babes, and booze. Michael Madsen, Eric Balfour and legendary "Easy Rider" Dennis Hopper are part of a wild motorcycle gang bent on avenging the death of one of their own. With Vinnie Jones as the crazed arrow-wielding rival gang leader, "Hell Ride" is a savagely enjoyable good-time where the women are hot, the bikes are even hotter, and the action never stops.

Video: 4/5
Audio: 4.75/5
Extras: 4.5/5 25-year-old Wes was the most disaffected, cube-dwelling drone the planet had ever known. His boss chewed him out hourly, his girlfriend ignored him routinely and his life plodded on interminably. Everyone was certain this disengaged slacker would amount to nothing. There was little else for Wes to do but wile away the days and die in his slow, clock-punching rut; until he met a woman named Fox. After his estranged father is murdered, the deadly sexy Fox recruits Wes into the Fraternity, a secret society that trains Wes to avenge his dad's death by unlocking his dormant powers.

Video: 3.55/5
Audio: 4.25/5
Extras: 0/5 The year is 1429. France is in political and religious turmoil as members of the royal family battle for rule. But one peasant girl from a remote village gave her country the miracle it was looking for. Milla Jovovich is Joan of Arc, a young woman who would inspire and lead her countrymen until her execution at the age of nineteen.

Video: 4/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 3/5 "Awake" is a psychological thriller about a common occurrence called "anesthetic awareness"; a horrifying phenomenon wherein a patient's failed anesthesia leaves him fully conscious but physically paralyzed during surgery. The patient's charming new wife is forced to struggle with her own demons as a terrifying drama unfolds around the couple.

Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 4/5
Extras: 4/5 Brennan Huff is a sporadically employed thirty-nine-year-old who lives with his mother, Nancy. Dale Doback is a terminally unemployed forty-year-old who lives with his father, Robert. When Robert and Nancy marry and move in together, Brennan and Dale are forced to live with each other as step brothers. As their narcissism and downright aggressive laziness threaten to tear the family apart, these two middle-aged, immature, overgrown boys will orchestrate an insane, elaborate plan to bring their parents back together. To pull it off, they must form an unlikely bond that maybe, just maybe, will finally get them out of the house.

Video: 4.25/5
Audio: 4.25/5
Extras: 4/5 With fuel prices skyrocketing, the Planet Express crew sets off on a dangerous mission: to infiltrate the world's only dark-matter mine, source of all spaceship fuel. But deep beneath the surface lies a far stranger place... a medieval land of dragons and sorcery and intoxicated knights who look suspiciously like Bender.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/fredclaus.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Did you know that Santa Claus (Paul Giamatti) has a brother? Yep, his name is Fred (Vince Vaughn), and he's on the naughty list. After growing up in saintly Nick's shadow, Fred becomes a scrooge who's lost his belief in Christmas. Estranged from the family but in dire need of cash, Fred ventures to the North Pole to help his brother through the holiday crunch in exchange for $50,000. His outlook on Christmas begins to change when he realizes Nick is in trouble from a scheming efficiency expert (Kevin Spacey) out to shut down Christmas forever.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/thekingdom.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>When Islamic terrorists attack United States citizens in Saudi Arabia, the FBI wants to dispatch an investigative team to track down the people responsible. Unfortunately, the Attorney General and the State Department are more worried about politics and diplomacy than justice, so the FBI takes matters into its own hands. Special Agent Ronald Fleury (Jamie Foxx) and his three-man team circumvent the system and gain access to the crime scene only to find the local authorities stonewalling them at every turn.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/hancock.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Will Smith stars as Hancock, a sarcastic, hard-living, misunderstood superhero who has fallen out of favor with the public and is in desperate need of an extreme makeover. Enter idealistic publicist Ray Embrey (Jason Bateman), who helps Hancock improve his public relations.

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/shawshankredemption.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>Based on the short story by Stephen King, <i>The Shawshank Redemption</i>'s central character is Andy Dufrane (Tim Robbins), a banker convicted of killing his wife and her country-club lover&#151;a crime he didn't commit. With nothing to look forward to but a life behind bars, Andy befriends Red (Morgan Freeman), the prison's virtual Wal-Mart "who can get things." Unbeknownst to Red, one of Andy's first requisitions helps him escape the confines of prison life. Over the next 19 years, Andy adapts to his surroundings and eventually puts his financial skills to work for the corrupt warden (Bob Gunton).

<IMG SRC="/images/archivesart/tropicthunder.jpg" WIDTH=200 BORDER=0 ALIGN=RIGHT>On the set of a Vietnam War movie, action-superstar Tugg Speedman (Ben Stiller), Academy Award-winner Kirk Lazarus (Robert Downey Jr.), and fart-king Jeff Portnoy (Jack Black) find themselves in a pickle when the hare-brained scheme of misguided director Damien Cockburn (Steve Coogan) goes awry. Along with two other actors, they are thrust into real-life danger and must band together to survive.

Video: 2.25/5
Audio: 1.5/5
Extras: 2.5/5 A stunning young woman surrenders herself at a remote chateau at her lover’s request and is immediately forced into a round the clock regimen of every sexual appetite imaginable. Her submission is total to the orgasmic odyssey that explores the shadowy boundaries between pleasure and pain.

Video: 3.5/5
Audio: 3/5
Extras: 2.5/5 It made overnight stars of Winona Ryder and Christian Slater, shocked film critics everywhere and became one of the biggest cult classics of the '80s. Twenty years later, "Heathers" remains the only brilliantly black comedy about peer pressure, malicious croquet and having a brain tumor for breakfast. At Westerburg High where cliques rule, jerk jocks dominate and the most popular girls are all named Heather, it's going to take a Veronica and the mysterious and possibly psychotic new kid J.D. to give teen angst a body count.